When Peter Grew Up
by Little White Bird
Summary: Discontent with life as a wife and mother, Wendy embarks on an adventure during which she discovers some of the dark secrets at the heart of Never Land. Romance! Angst! Motherhood! Pirates! Deicide! Literary Criticism! Wendy&Hook with a twist. Complete.
1. Default Chapter

1 May 1929  
  
The house breathed a sigh of relief when Jane returned today - it's not itself without a child at its heart. I thought I would be content too, now I can sit here in the nursery again and watch her sleep, but I'm not, and I don't like to think about why.  
  
She stirs, and murmurs in her sleep. I strain to hear, in case she's dreaming of Never Land.  
  
2 May 1929  
  
There are pirates again! There's even another Hook. There are lost boys and fairies and mermaids and Indians. Tiger Lily is now chief of the tribe. There are new things too - dinosaurs and aeroplanes and German spies. And there is Peter.  
  
She notices what I noticed: the translucence of his skin, the way the light shines on his curls, those eyes that see through you straight to your heart and mould it into what they want it to be. He still has all his baby teeth. The way he stands with his hands on his narrow hips when he crows; his little sword; his cruel laughter. Peter running, Peter swimming, Peter flying, Peter sauntering across the isle. She has a way with words, my Jane, but there is much she doesn't say.  
  
3 May 1929  
  
I gobble up her stories, and the more she tells me, the more I want. When she is exhausted I bribe her with sugarplums, and remind her of all the things I do for her.  
  
I feel horribly guilty, of course. All bmy/b mother's words about motherhood and love and loyalty and self-sacrifice hang over me. It is wrong to need her so.  
  
5 May 1929  
  
I want to see him again.  
  
A child's desire blazes bright and quick and is extinguished in no time flat. A grown-up's desire smoulders more gently, but it does not go out so easily. My desire swells like a forest fire, and I fear it will overpower me.   
  
I will go to Never Land. I am too old to chase after fairy dust and happy thoughts, but I will find a way. Second to the right and straight on 'til morning. I will fly on the wings of my desire.  
  
6 May 1929  
  
On second thoughts, I will fly in the cockpit of Lord Slightly and Lady Priscilla's 'plane. I've arranged to visit them on Saturday.  
  
8 May 1929  
  
Slightly scoffed, of course: none of the boys who are left believe in Never Land any more, but Lady P. was absolutely marvellous. She said it sounded like a 'ripping jaunt' and offered to fly me herself.  
  
I'm ashamed to admit how much I disliked Lady P. when Slightly first brought her home. She was twenty years older than him, and so different from anyone else I knew: a tall, big-boned aristocrat with wild silver hair and the kind of wrinkles you get from laughing too much, and the kind of laugh that makes everyone turn round and look at her. Unrestrained. So different from Ann and Alice and the other Lost Boys' wives. So different from me.  
  
Now I envy her. My face is a mother's face - bmy/b mother's face: kind and calm and lovely. My hair is neat and brown, my nose small and slightly turned up. The only irregularity is my mouth, which is slightly crooked. She moves with the ease of a man or child. I feel foolish when I try to imitate her, and besides, she doesn't imitate anyone.  
  
It will be different in Never Land. I will be myself again.  
  
12 May 1929  
  
I've said my goodbyes. Tootles knows I'm travelling with Lady P, but I didn't mention our destination. It's the first time we've been properly apart since... I have a horrible feeling it's the first time we've been apart since we got back from Never Land. He held me so tight that Peter's kiss pressed against my chest and left a mark.   
  
I love him, of course - he is my own dear Tootles and there is no-one like him. But do I love him as a wife ought to love her husband? I don't like thinking about that.  
  
What am I doing? What am I looking for? Am I trying to escape my duties here, or am I tying up the loose ends that prevent me from fulfilling them?  
  
It is a cold night. I am out in the park, watching her ladyship doing something unfeminine with a wrench. 'Final preparations,' she says, giving it to me to hold. I catch myself admiring my hand, free of the restraining band of gold that I have worn every day of my adult life. 


	2. Never Land

13 May 1929  
  
I write this on a beach at sunrise. It was Winter in England but it is Summer here. The sand sparkles, as though it had been created by someone who heard the phrase 'golden sands' and taken it too literally. I suppose it is the fairies being careless with their dust.  
  
To my relief, Lady P. declined to stay, though I felt it was polite to ask her. I do not know how long I have been here (time works differently in Never Land) but it is pleasant to watch the crabs and birds and funny little crawly things. I even glimpsed a pair of mermaids. For the last week I have been nothing but impatience, but now I'm here it's disappeared. I will not seek Peter - I shall wait for him to come to me.   
  
[later]  
  
Peter forgets. I did not expect him to remember. We all have our flaws. Peter forgets and I grow - that's how it is. It's horrible but it's right. And now everything has gone terribly wrong. He has changed or I have forgotten, or both, or worse or I don't know...  
  
Three of them came out of the woods together. I thought they must all be Lost Boys, even though the one in front stood like a leader (Slightly stood a bit like a leader too.)  
  
"I am Wendy Moira Angela Tootles," I said, "take me to Peter Pan."  
  
"I am Peter Pan," said the lead boy.  
  
"No you are not." I said, noticing even as I did that he had Peter's skin, Peter's curls, Peter's eyes, Peter's little teeth. Yet he was not Peter, and I knew it.  
  
"Oh yes I am," he said, laughing, as though he were at a pantomime.  
  
More boys arrived - six or seven of them, and they all looked curiously at me. The smallest came forward, reached out his little hand and lightly touched my arm, then ran back to the others, grinning at his own bravery  
  
"What is it, Peter?" He asked. "It is something like a Jane and something like a Pirate. Should we kill it, or will it be our mother?"  
  
The boy they called Peter would not show his ignorance, so he turned away and said: "It is nothing of interest. It is only a mermaid without her tail. Come. I want to build canoes."  
  
And then they left me.  
  
Everything has gone terribly wrong.  
  
May the... I do not know. Never Land is such a confusing place when it comes to time. I shall not write the date any more.  
  
And I shall not allow myself to believe that I am mistaken or mad. The boy the people here call Peter Pan is not the boy I knew when I was a child - I know that in the same way that I know water is wet or love is good.  
  
I feel lonely and afraid, but I am determined to find out what has happened  
  
[Later - another day? It has certainly darkened and become light more.]  
  
I confess that after I wrote the above all my resolution dissolved into tears - I wept and wept until exhaustion took me and I fell asleep.  
  
I awoke suddenly to feel a rough pair of hands on my shoulders. I squirmed and kicked and screamed, but my assailant was much stronger than me, and once he'd clamped a hand over my mouth I was defenceless. He carried me easily across the sand.  
  
"Quake with fear, Lady," was the first thing he said to me, but he didn't sound too sure about it. "For we be the meanest pirates that sailed the seven seas!" There was an uncomfortable silence, then, "Arrrrr," as a kind of afterthought.  
  
Suddenly I recognised him. Smee! Smee had always been my favourite. I remember thinking he needed a mother just as much as Peter did. I began to laugh, but he must have misinterpreted my noises.  
  
"Oh, please don't cry, Lady! The Cap'n's a Gentleman. I'm sure 'e won' hurt ye. I'd let ye go, only I promised 'im I'd bring 'im back a captive 'an the boys an' the Injuns are always too speedy for me."  
  
We rounded a corner and I saw the ship moored in a natural harbour. A small pirate was cleaning the floor - swabbing the decks, I should say - but other than that it was deserted. He looked up curiously as Smee gently threw me into a small chamber which he then locked with a loud, "take that!" presumably for the other pirate's benefit, and a quiet, "sorry," presumably for mine. 


	3. Aboard the Jolly Roger

Alone in that tiny, lightless space, different fears competed to take hold of me. On the one hand there was the existential terror engendered by seeing the image of one I loved filled with the substance of a stranger. On the other there were more fleshly concerns with regard to the kind of things that happen to nice young ladies locked up on pirate ships - the kind of adventures that might be thrilling to think about from the safety of a warm bedroom in Bloomsbury, but were an entirely different matter there and then.  
  
I tried to remember all I could about Hook. As I recalled, he did act like a gentleman, horribly courteous and urbane. He was the first person to have ever treated me like a grown-up lady... and I loved it. I hated myself for loving it of course - for wanting anything to do with growing up, for wanting anything to do with bhim/b - but I couldn't stop it. I'd forgotten about that. In fact, now I remember making a conscious effort to forget about it - only to think about Peter, just as later I made myself forget about Peter and love only Tootles.  
  
Tootles. I missed him now - my ringless finger felt lonely and forlorn. And I missed Peter. Where was he? I pictured him lying dead somewhere, with no-one to bury him. I pictured him alone in a dark cell, bound and forgotten, his light quite extinguished. I pictured him grown up. Walking to work with a briefcase and bowler hat, exchanging a word or two about the weather, settling down to do clever things with figures inscribed on pages, which were worth more now to him now than heaps of pirate gold.  
  
And was it my fault? Did he hate me for marrying another husband, conceiving another child? How could I have thought of giving him less than all my love, whether he thanked me for it or not? Yet how could I think of giving Jane and Tootles less than all my love, when they are mine and only mine and thank me for it every day?  
  
I was jolted out from melancholy to fear by the sound of voices. A party of pirates singing that song they always sang:  
  
Avast, belay, yo-ho, heave-ho  
  
A-pirating we go.  
  
And if we're parted by a shot  
  
We're sure to meet below.  
  
I remembered the last time I heard it - the boys had all started singing the National Anthem to drown them out. How proud I had been...  
  
Then there was light again, and voices, and hands pulling me out.  
  
"There ye go Cap'n! A captive. I was a tellin' yer I'd get 'un for ye."  
  
He stood before me, so tall that I felt like a little girl again. That coat would have looked ridiculous on anyone else: purple velvet trimmed with... No, not trimmed - there was nothing 'trim' about the extravagant curlicues of thick gold thread, or the shiny buttons, or the jewel-encrusted cuffs. On anyone else, you would have stared at it, bedazzled, but on him it drew you upwards towards the elegant aquiline nose, the strange eyes (intense yet delicate, somewhat like forget-me-nots); the luxuriant black curls. Or else downwards. To the hands, I mean. The hand. The strong left hand resting on cutlass. And the hook. Shining steel, stark and merciless - and yet there was perfection in the contours of its curve, even beauty (could I see a flash of gold filigree on the ebony cup that attached it to his mutilated wrist?) All his strength and all his weakness in ten inches of cold metal.  
  
Our eyes met, and a twitch of his brows indicated... What? Consternation? Recognition? Attraction? But though he kept staring, he did not address me, at first.  
  
"Boatswain Smee!" Proudly, the little Irishman stood to attention. "For what reason did you incarcerate this lady?"  
  
"Reason, Cap'n?"  
  
"Aye Smee, Reason. I realise it is not a concept with which you are overly familiar, hailing as you do from a land that considers the potato a suitable substitute for education, but I would have thought that the decades you have spent in my service might have given you a glancing acquaintance with the concept."  
  
It almost broke my heart to see the pride fall from his face. "I'm waiting, Smee..."  
  
"I... I don' know, Cap'n. You told me to get you a captive, an' she were just sittin' there. Mighty suspicious, I call it, sittin' around on beaches. I think she be... um..." then inspiration hit, "a spy! Ay, Cap'n, 'twas my way of thinking that..."  
  
The Captain rolled those forget-me-not eyes, and turned his glare for the first time from me to the Boatswain, who reeled away, as though from a physical blow.  
  
"Begone, Smee! Report to me tomorrow morning for punishment." And gone Smee was.  
  
Slowly, the Captain turned to face me again. He bowed.  
  
"Madam," he said, "my sincere apologies."  
  
"Captain," I replied, "think nothing of it. And please do not punish your boatswain on my account - he was ever gentle towards me - more a rescuer than a captor." The boys-own antique dialect of Neverland rolled easily off my tongue.  
  
"You are gentle," he said. I was not sure whether it was a criticism or a compliment. In any case, I inclined my head in acceptance.  
  
"Naturally, I will provide you with an escort back to the beach whenever you desire it, but perhaps you would care to take a cup of tea with me first?"  
  
I accepted before I knew what I was doing. 


	4. In the Captain's Cabin

I liked his cabin at once. Like the man himself it consisted of savagery and opulent luxury in exactly the right proportions. The wooden panels of the walls were intricately carved into nautical motifs - mermaids and dolphins, ships and waves and fishes. Some of them were gilded. The chairs were upholstered the finest red silk velvet, but rather clumsily so, with great big tacks attaching them to the mahogany. The weapons on the walls were nothing like the handsome cavalry swords in Lord Slightly's study - despite the fripperies that adorned some of the hilts, they were clearly big sharp pieces of metal intended for killing people. In corner, there was a harpsichord.  
  
"I believe we have met before," was the first thing he said. "I am Captain James Hook. My memory is not what it was, but I believe you to be Wendy Moira Angela Darling."  
  
I almost corrected him, but stopped myself. My ring finger twitched with guilt. I half thought I noticed Hook's eye's flick down and take this piece of information in. I warned myself neither to over-estimate nor to underestimate his powers.  
  
"I remember you," I said.  
  
He poured the tea in silence.  
  
I could think of many things to say next, "I thought you were dead," "so, are you still trying to kill Peter?" and "how come Peter isn't Peter any more" were chief among them, but they didn't seem quite the done thing for a polite tea party, so instead I gestured to the harpsichord and asked him if he played.  
  
"Yes," he said. "Or at least I'm trying to learn. I am a little more skilled at the flute - I have been playing it for rather longer." I thought that frankly a little unlikely, but Never Land is Never Land, so I supposed anything possible and indicated that I should like to hear him sometime. He thanked me graciously for the compliment.  
  
"What have you been doing since we last met?" he asked. "This and that," I said, trying to think of what I bdo/b do apart from being a wife and mother. "I read a great deal. I like to paint watercolours. I was very involved in the women's suffrage movement when I was younger."  
  
He nodded. "Very admirable. I often wish Never Land were a democracy as opposed to an absolute monarchy."  
  
I laughed. I had never seen it like that before. I tried to picture Pan and Hook standing against one another in elections, and all the fairies and lost boys and Indians solemnly lining up to vote. They would probably eat the ballot papers or something.  
  
The tea was lovely - a nice strong Assam, though the biscuits tasted a little strange. ("Smee made them," said the Captain, perhaps by way of apology.)  
  
After that, the conversation became surprisingly easy and enjoyable. I'd forgotten that Hook was an old Etonian. John's boys are at Eton now, and I quite often go up for sports days and so on. It was good to have something in common other than the last time we met, a subject which both of us were delicately avoiding. We talked about books we'd read and plays we'd seen. Both of us have a passion for Shakespeare. The oddest moment was when he revealed he'd played Puck at school. So had I. I suddenly and vividly remembered what it was like to hold the whole audience enraptured - to have it in my power to make 300 people look wherever I wanted them to look, to make them look at me. How did I do it? By pretending to be Peter, of course. By bbeing/b Peter - by drawing through me his youth, his strength, his assurance, and throwing it out into their faces like fairy dust.  
  
Between us we described that feeling, a feeling that neither of us had been able to express before. "I was invincible, for those few days," said the Captain, echoing my own thoughts, "I was immortal." It was curious to think of him as a boy, curious to see him from the inside like that, curious to know we had something in common...  
  
"I normally have a tot of rum at this hour," he said at some point. "Would you care to join me?"  
  
I surprised myself by assenting. I'd never tasted rum before and found it delicious - like brandy only sweeter and darker-tasting - something like brown sugar. A pleasant surprise - I had somehow expected it to taste more rough and masculine.  
  
It emboldened me to be more personal in my questioning. I asked him about his life before Eton.  
  
"I don't remember anything."  
  
"How do you mean?"  
  
"My earliest memory is crossing the school threshold and being shown to my dorm."  
  
"But surely your mother..."  
  
"I don't have a mother."  
  
"Oh Captain!" The rum and my maternal instinct had momentarily overwhelmed me. Involuntarily I put my hand to his arm. He flinched but did not withdraw. Something felt strange - something beyond the mere shock of first physical contact, but I couldn't tell what. Feeling a little foolish, I returned my hand to my lap and sought a new subject.  
  
Quite suddenly, like the lights being switched off, the sky outside went dark. An absolute monarchy indeed, where the child-tyrant even has power over day and night.  
  
He insisted that I should spend the night in his bedchamber - a tiny room leading off from his main cabin - while he slept with Smee. The idea made me a little uncomfortable, but he would not take no for an answer. I write this in bed. It is surprisingly soft, and the sheets smell of him, which is far from unpleasant. 


	5. Exploration

It felt so strange to wake up to the sea and spice smell of the Jolly Roger. I couldn't remember where I was at first. I had slept well (I suppose it was the rum) and a little while after I woke, there was a knock on the door.  
  
"Breakfast is served," called Smee. I opened the door - Smee was gone, but there was a little tray with a cup of tea, some buttered toast and marmalade, and a boiled egg in a silver egg-cup shaped like a shell. I took it through to the main cabin, and ate it all hungrily. Had I been back in London, I would have found it delightful, but it seemed such a waste to stay on a pirate ship and get treated to five star service.  
  
When I had finished, I set out to take my tray back down to the galley, and to explore. The first person I met was Smee - he seemed a little startled or embarrassed to see me, but he rallied himself well.  
  
"Good day, miss," he said. "I'm terrible sorry about yesterday."  
  
"Think nothing of it." I was uncomfortably aware that I felt grateful to him for bringing me here.  
  
"Let me take that tray."  
  
"Thank you, Smee."  
  
As I walked around the deck, the crew were all very polite to me, raising their hats and wishing me a good morning in the politest of terms. I felt like the queen, and not in a good way. Every time I turned a corner, packs of cards were swiftly tucked into pockets, bottles shoved behind piles of rope, song lyrics bowdlerised and curses changed to 'oh dear me'. I supposed that they were under command to be on their best behaviour. It was funny and rather sweet, but I would have preferred to see what things were really like. In the end I took pity on them all and returned to the Captain's cabin.  
  
When I was bored of tinkering on the harpsichord (a fine instrument, insofar as I could tell, though the keys on the right hand side were badly scratched and dented,) I turned to the bookshelves. In pride of place was a well-thumbed thesaurus. There was a complete Shakespeare, which fell open at iRichard III/i. I wondered whether Hook considered the crookback king something of a role model. There was also some A.E. Housman. Finally, there was a thick tome entitled iMyths of the Piccaninny Indians/i. I noticed several bookmarks sticking out of it, and when I opened it, I saw that someone had been scribbling in the margins. This is what I took back to one of the red velvet chairs, with the big tacks and (when I looked closely) what looked like an old bloodstain at which someone had scrubbed hard but not managed to remove.  
  
I began reading where the first bookmark was, and saw at once that I would want to read on:  
  
"The Never Land Piccaninnies believe that their native island is ruled be two deities: Manitou, the great mother-goddess, and Pan, her son. Manitou is the Goddess of life, birth, time and death. She takes a number of different animal and human forms and is also known as 'the devourer'. Pan is the boy-god of youth and joy also known [ironically?] as the Great White Father. It is not generally thought that he has any connection to the Greek god of the same name. Professor Llewellyn-Davies has suggested a common root through the animistic religions of Neolithic man, but his theory is still considered highly controversial. The story of Pan's birth is one of the 'Six Secret Stories' known only to the female elders of the tribe."  
  
The margin notes (in ink! Truly the life of a Buccaneer is one without respect for even the most fundamental rules of civilised society) were hard to decipher. One read "Neverbird?" and another something like "Amnet?" or "Ammet?" but I didn't get any further before the door opened and the Captain strode in.  
  
"My humblest apologies," he said, "I have been tied up with work. I hope you have amused yourself?" I wondered what exactly "work" was for a pirate moored in harbour.  
  
"I've been reading," I said. He took the book from my hands.  
  
"Interested in native culture, are you?"  
  
I decided there was no point in being subtle. "I'm interested in Peter Pan," I said. It was the first time that either of us had mentioned that name, and I thought I saw him flinch very slightly at the sound of it.  
  
He sat down in the chair opposite mine. Our knees were almost touching and it thrilled me. He did not speak for several seconds, then he did so quietly, every word enunciated:  
  
"Why are you 'interested' in Peter Pan?"  
  
"Because I love him."  
  
"As a mother?"  
  
"As a... as myself."  
  
"And what did you hope to find in my book?"  
  
"I wanted to discover the... the..."  
  
"The riddle of his being."  
  
"Yes. Yes! That is exactly the phrase I wanted to use, only I thought it sounded silly."  
  
"It is a phrase many have used before. Have you seen him yet? On this visit to Never Land I mean." His tones were measured, very calm, almost casual. Something like doctor questioning a patient about his symptoms.  
  
"Yes... or rather... no. I saw someone who looks like Peter and calls himself Peter, but he bisn't/b Peter. Not the Peter I used to know."  
  
The hook twitched a little as (I remembered) it always did when he was agitated. "Are you sure?" Suddenly there was urgency in his voice. "Are you absolutely sure? How could you tell?"  
  
"I just knew, Captain. And I think you knew it too, or at least suspected it. No? Please tell me what you know, Captain."  
  
Another appraising stare, another long pause, then:  
  
"I have been researching Pan's... origins for some time now. I have long suspected... well, all sorts of things, but most pertinently that his much vaunted immortality, this 'eternal youth' of his is actually far from eternal."  
  
Suddenly I realised something. "Pertinent? Pertinent to what? You just want to kill him, don't you? This research, it's just so you can destroy him."  
  
"I will confess that that was - is - was my primary motivation. You must understand how little choice I have in the matter. It is my vocation to pursue him - that is what I was put on earth to do - it's an instinct."  
  
"Nonsense!" I said. "A man of breeding and education like yourself bound by 'instinct'? That's ridiculous."  
  
He gave a wry smile. "You would think so, wouldn't you?"  
  
"But why? Why can't you just sail off and do something else?"  
  
"Why indeed. That is my other motivation. My main one now, perhaps. I want to find out why my fate is bound to his in this way. I want to learn how to be free of it. I want to know who I am."  
  
"I... I think I understand," I said, and I did. And yet the rational part of me was horrified that I was accepting a grown man's excuses for the murder of a child.  
  
"So, what else have you discovered?" I asked.  
  
"How do you mean?"  
  
"I've read the relevant passage in iMyths of the Piccaninnies/i. What else do you know?"  
  
"There is a myth not in that book, a myth about Pan's birth."  
  
"One of the Six Secret Stories?"  
  
"That is correct."  
  
"You know it?"  
  
Pause.  
  
"I... do."  
  
"How!?" I was getting excited.  
  
"It was told me by one of the elders of Tiger Lily's tribe."  
  
I opened my mouth to ask how he had persuaded her to part with one of her people's most sacred secrets, but then I closed it again. I did not want to know. He smiled as though he were reading my mind, then began. His tone was a strange one, something like a don giving a lecture, something like a father telling a story.  
  
"All children grow up, unless they are lucky enough to die first. What makes childhood a sacred time in the eyes of the Piccaninnies is the fact that it ends. The distinctive feature of the child - that which makes him admirable, enviable, worthy of worship is the speed with which he learns, changes, develops. And the inevitable result of learning, changing, developing is that one grows up. It would be nonsensical to have a god of childhood who did not grow, because growing is the very essence of childhood. Do you see?"  
  
I did.  
  
"In an hour when the world was still young, Manitou laid an egg, and when it hatched, out crawled a boy-child by the name of Pan. Sometimes the great Mother eats her offspring and sometimes she does not, but before she could decide to do with this one, the fairies, much enamoured of his comeliness, stole him away.  
  
His naming ceremony was a grand affair, with the Fairy Queen herself in attendance, but unfortunately the appointed godmother was terribly forgetful. She remembered her oaths, she remembered the lighted candle, she even remembered to hold the child the right way up, but alas! She had forgotten to bring the child a gift. The time came: the central moment of the rite:  
  
"Child, I gift thee with..." She spoke as slowly as she was able, desperately feeling in her pockets for anything that would do, but unfortunately she had cleared them in honour of the occasion. She looked around but there was nothing and no-one to help. Everybody waited.  
  
To give nothing would be unimaginable shame, so when she had an idea, she decided to go with it, even though she was well aware that as ideas went it was, it was not a particularly good one. "At least," she reasoned, "it will prevent me from making the same mistake again."  
  
"Child, I gift thee with my own bad memory. May it serve thee well."  
  
She was expecting jeers, but before there was time for them to come, the Fairy Queen stood up and smiled. "A wise gift, lady, though a strange one. For he who cannot remember griefs has only joys, and he who cannot learn will remain always a child, and childhood is the most blessed state of life."  
  
But Peter did not remain always a child - he had a bad memory, but not a non-existent one. Slowly - unimaginably slowly to any mortal - he changed and grew tall, and one day one of his baby teeth became loose and fell out. The little clink it made on the hard rock roused Manitou, his mother, the mother of us all, and a great hunger grew in her that could only be satisfied by the taste of her own son's flesh. She moved from her lair to pursue him. But she left behind an egg, and when it hatched, out crawled a boy child by the name off Pan."  
  
"And thus it will go on," I said, shivering, "so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless."  
  
"What?" He spoke sharply.  
  
"Just something from a story," I said. Slowly it was sinking in. Peter changes. Peter grows. Peter is no rock, no philosopher's stone, no comforting bastion against the forces of mutability. He cannot be relied upon to remain himself any more than he could be relied upon to love or to remember. I was lonely. Lonely and angry and afraid.  
  
The Captain was looking intently at me. "I know," he said softly. I had never heard him speak that way before.  
  
"What?"  
  
"I used to want to kill him because he had the audacity to stay the same when the rest of us were doomed to decay and death. Now I want to kill him because he has the audacity to change."  
  
That night the sunset had been a slow one - oranges and pinks and purples gradually mellowing into dark. When I looked out, I saw the stars.  
  
"Time for bed," said Hook, and stood up to leave.  
  
"You could always sleep here," I said, on an impulse.  
  
"And deprive you of a bed? Come lady, I would not be so ungentlemanly." Was he teasing me? Was he? I was prepared to risk it.  
  
"I mean with me, Captain. I'm lonely. I would appreciate some company.  
  
I looked up at him in what I thought might be a seductive manner. I wasn't used to that kind of thing. I married Tootles at nineteen, and there had been no need for courtship, let alone seduction. We went straight from being children playing at house to being grown-ups doing much the same.  
  
He showed no surprise. "In that case yes, I should love to stay."  
  
Then we were sitting on the bed. The awkwardness of it made me laugh. I took off my bodice, skirt and stays, and let down my hair.  
  
"You are very beautiful," he said. I caught sight of myself in a mirror with my rumpled petticoat and grubby chemise and laughed again. He kissed me - sucking at my mouth and doing something strange with his tongue. I had never kissed like that before, and I liked it. He pulled me up onto his lap, so I was sitting facing him, my legs loosely wrapped around his body. We kissed again, and this time I tried to do the tongue thing myself, and it must have worked, because I felt the stirrings beneath me that mean a man likes what I'm doing. He put his arms around me, and I felt cold steel on the back of my neck. It was delicious. As I kissed him harder, he stroked my back with the hook, firm, but very slowly, as though counting every one of my vertebrae. When he came to the drawstring of my petticoat, he undid it with an admirable deftness, and I slipped out of it, and out of my chemise and bloomers as well.  
  
His attire was considerably more problematic. The coat got caught on the hook, the waistcoat buttons were too tight, and the breeches were torn as he clawed impatiently at them. When finally there was just the shirt left to go, he would not let me remove it, but instead pushed me down onto the bed, sitting on top, holding my left shoulder with his hand, and caressing my face with his hook.  
  
I could not tell whether he was amorous or angry, whether he wanted to please me or hurt me. I suspected he was peeved at the clumsiness of his disrobing.  
  
He bent down towards me, and as he did so, something slipped from the neck of his shirt - a pendent of some sort - so close that it was hard to focus, yet there was something familiar about it. Then all at once I knew.  
  
"My kiss!"  
  
He drew back suddenly.  
  
"What?"  
  
"You're wearing the kiss - the thimble I gave to Peter. You stole it!" But even as I said it, I knew he hadn't.  
  
I fancied I saw into his mind then - saw the memories flooding back: the sweetness of his glorious childhood, taunting the long-dead man whose shape he now bore; the bitterness of the day that first tooth fell and he was dragged from paradise to a cold, lonely place with no memories, no family, no friends - nothing but a puzzling little thimble on a string to link him to his past.  
  
He was shaking. I wanted to hold him, to take him in my arms and comfort him, but I knew that would be unwise, so instead I smiled, and found that as I did, my heart was lifted, and the strangeness and solemnity of the revelation melted away.  
  
"Peter," I said, "what are your exact feelings for me?"  
  
"Those of a devoted son, Wendy."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Oh yes. What's the matter? I thought all the fashionable ladies in Bloomsbury read Freud these days." Then he was smiling too, and both of us were laughing, lying side by side on the bed, and oh the sweetness of it! 


	6. On Deck

I awoke before him. The skin on my back hurt from dozens of little scratches and a   
  
few bigger ones, yet the arm that encircled me ended in no iron claw, no strong hand, nothing but a rounded wrist, shiny and misshapen with scars. It did disgust me, as he had been afraid it would, but it was a delicious, thrilling sort of disgust, and I delighted in the fact he trusted me enough to let me see him in such absolute nakedness.  
  
He grunted and turned, letting me go, and then I could observe his face in the morning light. I tried to trace Peter's features onto his, and thought I recognised something in the angle of the cheekbones, something in the eyes. His wig was on the floor along with the hook, so I saw for the first time his own hair, brown and grey, cropped very short. He looked much older without his finery, but no less handsome.  
  
Then there was shouting outside, and he woke at once. His cutlass was in his hand before I had even registered that something was going on.  
  
"Captain!" Smee burst in, then, seeing me, burst back out again, red as a beetroot.  
  
"Smee! Come back. What's happening? Is it Peter?" He had grabbed the hook from the floor along with its leather harness, and started fumbling to buckle it on. I helped him, which he tolerated because of the obvious need, but clearly did not enjoy. There were voices outside, Smee and other pirates and... and a strident, deep female voice, which was very familiar to me.  
  
"Get out of my way!"  
  
And then she was in the doorway: leather aviatrix gear, silver hair flying everywhere.  
  
"Lady Priscilla!" Slightly was on her left side and - oh dear - Tootles on her right. Slightly stepped forward, brandishing a sword heroically.  
  
"Don't worry, Wendy! We're here to save you." His wife pushed him out of the way, and strode over, wrapping me in a blanket and pulling me away from Hook.  
  
"Wendy, my darling, let's get you out of here. Oh, my poor love, has he hurt you?"  
  
Tootles stayed in the doorway. He spoke very quietly, but everyone listened. "It's all right," he said, "I don't think Wendy needs saving, and I don't think anyone's hurt her. We should go now."  
  
There was a horrible silence, then Lady P stood up.  
  
"Is that true, Wendy? You're here of your own accord?"  
  
Before I could answer, there was another commotion outside, and that unmistakable cock-crow that heralded the arrival of Peter the boy. Meanwhile, Peter the man had donned shirt, wig and breeches. With a fury that I suspect had been partially occasioned by the necessity of going into battle without a coat and waistcoat, he strode through the little crowd (his power was such that even Lady Priscilla made way for him) and went to meet his adversity. Because I couldn't think of anything better to do, I threw on my chemise and ran after him. I was just in time too, for one of the pirates locked the door behind me, trapping Slightly, Tootles and her Ladyship in the tiny bedchamber. Someone handed me a sword. It was years since I had wielded one, but it all came back to me at once. In Never Land you don't have to practise.  
  
"Proud and insolent youth, prepare to meet thy doom!"  
  
"Dark and sinister man, have at thee!"  
  
Did they always say that? Suddenly I got an intimation of what it must feel like to be stuck in that terrible cycle - man and boy, boy and man - hatred and envy and scorn - the thought of it made me sick. But not for long. Soon all was chaos, and I was able to lose myself in the heat of battle.  
  
"Have at thee!" All in all, it was quite even. We pirates were stronger than the boys. They were quicker and always dodged my blows, but our reach was longer and so I kept them away from me.   
  
Then suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my leg - the smallest of them had ducked in under my sword while I was preoccupied with another. I took him by the shoulder and pushed him away. Then our eyes met.  
  
"Jane!"  
  
"Mummy!"  
  
And nothing was except me and her. I wanted to tell her to go to bed, to call Nana, to tuck her up with a goodnight cocoa. I wanted to run her through. She spoke first, in this strange authoritative voice I'd never heard before.  
  
"Go home, Mummy."  
  
"No." I suspect I sounded like a petulant child.  
  
"You can't be a pirate," she rolled her eyes and spoke in the tones of a teacher talking to the class dunce, "it's your job to look after me and Daddy."  
  
"No, Jane, it isn't. I may be a Mother but I'm a person too, and I can have adventures just as much as you can. Go home, Jane. This is dangerous. You might get hurt."  
  
We just stood there and stared at one another. Then Peter's voice broke through.  
  
"Go on Jane, get her! We don't want any silly mothers."  
  
And we were at it again, fighting as furiously as Peter and the Captain ever fought. She was above me, below me, all around me, aiming stinging little blows that usually missed but sometimes hit. I couldn't get her at all, but I knew that if I did, I would probably kill her. Time and time again I missed her by a fraction of an inch. Time and time again she crowed with glee, almost as cocky as Peter himself. I hated her. I wanted to feel my cutlass sink into her delicate puppy flesh, to see her perfect skin marred with blood and worse. We fought on. There was a shout behind us, and for a second she was distracted. I grasped the opportunity with both hands, knocking the tiny sword from hers, grabbing her by the neck and pushing her down to the ground. As I raised my sword for the final blow, there was a second shout, louder than before. It was the Captain.  
  
"Crocodile!"  
  
Somehow, the amazing creature had boarded the ship. Never say you don't believe in dragons, never say the dinosaurs are dead. There are fourteen foot crocodiles in Africa as well as Never Land. Only Peter was unafraid - the rest of us, pirates and boys alike, began to draw slowly back, scared that any quick movement would attract her attention.  
  
"Mummy!" Jane held on tightly to my legs.  
  
"Mummy's here," I said, and I knew I would gladly die to save her.  
  
Then Tootles spoke - in the confusion I had not noticed that the three of them had escaped.  
  
"It's not a crocodile," he said slowly, thoughtfully. "It's an allegory." Everyone stared at him.  
  
"Alligator," incorrected Slightly.  
  
Then suddenly I laughed. "No, Slightly, you're wrong. She's an allegory, and a rather crass one at that." I picked up a bottle from the floor and threw it at her.  
  
Then everyone else started to throw things too - whatever was at hand. Swords and spears, cups and plates, apples, melons, pineapples. The enormous black pirate, whose name I had never quite caught, threw a whole barrel of rum, which broke against her skull and burst.  
  
Only Peter did not join in, loathe to succour the enemy. Yet it looked so much fun! His fingers twitched with frustration. Seeing this, Hook took him by the shoulder and spoke almost kindly to him:  
  
"Don't you see!? She will get you too in the end. It's only pretend that she won't." Peter laughed. "Who are you, Peter? Who am I? Don't you see who I am?" And then I fancied that he did see, or almost saw, but wouldn't admit it. "You're Hook," he said, "and I'm going to kill you." He drew his sword, but Hook knew that even in Never Land it is bad form to engage in more than one Ultimate Battle at a time, so he pushed the boy away.  
  
"Leave it," he cried to us all, making himself heard above the din, "the beast is mine."  
  
I was afraid for him. Terribly afraid. He looked insubstantial as a child before that terrible creature, and as she paced towards him with repulsive crouching gait, eyes fixed on him alone, we knew her for the goddess she was. The air was still - even Peter's eyes were fixed on the scene in front of him. The only sound was that of her footsteps, slow and heavy.  
  
And then she sprang, snapping her jaws and lashing her bleeding tail. I would not have thought such a cumbersome-looking creature capable of moving so fast. Hook dodged to one side, swinging his cutlass, but he had been taken by surprise and his aim was far wide of the mark. Yet he steadied himself immediately and struck again, this time hitting her on the nose. Enraged, she opened her jaws wide, rearing up ready to bear down on the captain. Seeing his chance, he bravely thrust the cutlass upwards into her mouth, wounding her yet again. The jaws snapped shut. He withdrew his hand just in time, but alas! Three rows of teeth bore down on the cutlass, blunting and warping and breaking it until it was useless. She smiled, spat it out and moved in for the kill. The Captain bravely stood his ground, swiping with his hook whenever she came too close. She feigned hesitance, but it was obvious she was only playing with him. She opened her jaws. "Floreat Etona!" he was heard to mutter. Then there was another voice: "Captain!"  
  
Peter, who could have had the satisfaction of seeing his enemy eaten alive, who could have enjoyed inflicting the greater ignominy of saving his life; Peter, who must always be the centre of attention, the bravest and the best; Peter, who, just when you think you finally understand him, always does something completely uncharacteristic; Peter yielded up his own sword, and the Captain was again in with a fighting chance.  
  
The silence having once been broken, we all began to shout for Hook - pirates and lost boys alike; Slightly, Tootles and Priscilla; fairies in the air above us, mermaids in the water around us, Indians on the shore - all Never Land united in cheering its unlikely champion.  
  
The battle then was swift and furious: snapping, hacking, dodging. He was bleeding from numerous near misses, and limping badly. He fought on, but it seemed to me that he was getting weaker with every blow. Then she snapped particularly ferociously, and instead of leaping backwards, he dashed towards and past her. Before she could turn round, he was up on her back, raining down blows on her snout and hard skull. The sword broke again, but this time it didn't matter - he clawed at her eyes with his hook, and must have managed to strike up through the eye socket at the brain, for with a loud cry and horrible convulsive movement, she gave up the ghost.  
  
On the far side of the island, in a sacred grove, the songs of joy and lament began. The Indians were mourning and celebrating the death of their greatest goddess: Manitou, mother and devourer of all. 


	7. Departure

The Captain's wounds were not serious, but they were many. Smee helped him to his cabin, and before long I was called down to see him.  
  
"I am free, Wendy. I don't hate him any more."  
  
He was a changed man. There was a joy in his voice that was unmistakably Peter. My Peter. Now my heart as well as my intellect knew that the fair boy and dark man of my youth were one.  
  
"Sail away with me Wendy. I am leaving Never Land and never coming back. There's a whole world out there - lands of silk and spices; elephants and camels and beasts you haven't even heard of back in London."  
  
As clearly as though it were yesterday, I remembered the last time he had said something of that sort to me.  
  
IWendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be flying about with me, saying funny things to the stars./I  
  
"I will teach you how to sail the ship. You can be my first mate, my pirate queen. The crew will love and fear you; the fat merchants and obsequious Navymen will tremble at your very name. I was watching you today. You're a good fighter, Wendy - you could be one of the best."  
  
I There are mermaids, Wendy, with long tails./I  
  
"Oh Wendy, how I love you."  
  
The words he never, never could say.  
  
All those years ago I left my mother and father, ignorant of the depths of their sorrow. But to leave my husband and child, and not ignorantly but in full knowledge, and forever, that was another matter. Yet before me lay the two great loves of my life compounded into one, and how could I not follow him to the ends of the earth? I turned away to hide my tears.  
  
"Wendy? What is it, Wendy? Don't cry, my love."  
  
He painfully heaved himself up into a sitting position, and took my hand, stroking it with the hookless stump of his right wrist.  
  
His kindness was unbearable. Quickly, I pulled away.  
  
Suddenly he was the old Hook again - terrible in his fury, piteous in his despair. "I disgust you then? I see." His eyes were full of tears, but his brows were furrowed in rage. He took my hand again, holding it too tightly for me to escape.  
  
"I can keep you here by force, you know. If you will not be my queen, I can make you my slave." I am ashamed to say my heart rose. To be saved from making that dreadful choice, to be with my love forever and not be blamed for it - there was nothing I desired more. And yet I made myself put up the best resistance I could, trying to speak calmly and with dignity.  
  
"You do not disgust me, Captain. Far from it. But I am a married woman and a mother."  
  
"A mother!" He spat out the word as though it had a foul taste to it. "I killed my mother today, Wendy, and it was the happiest moment of my life. Jane wanted to kill you too. I heard her."  
  
"Yet I will not abandon her."  
  
"Then bring her with you! All children dream of living on a pirate ship. She can be heir to the biggest fortune on the seven seas."  
  
"Neither will I abandon Tootles."  
  
"He is a fool. He was always the stupidest of them. He tried to kill you once too - don't you remember?"  
  
"He is my husband, Captain, and I will remain true to my vows."  
  
"Then you are a fool too. When you are an old woman you will remember this moment and die in despair because you made the wrong decision - the grown-up decision. I liked you better when you were a little girl, Wendy. You were yourself then. Now you are ordinary."  
  
He released my hand. "Go then. Ask Smee to row you and your friends to the beach."  
  
I couldn't go. I tried, but I could not persuade my legs to move. It would have been all right were it not for the fact that he was still bleeding and winced with pain every time he moved. Smee had done his best with the bandages, but they were dirty and not tied properly and...  
  
"I told you to go away." His voice dripped with hatred and sarcasm. "I do not care for you any more. You are just a common little housewife, and unworthy to be my slave. Get out now!"  
  
I believed him right up until the moment I shut the door behind me and heard the stifled little moan of anguish. I would have gone straight back in were it not for...  
  
"Tootles!" I think he had been listening at the door.  
  
"Wendy?" he said. "Can we have a word in private?"  
  
"Yes. Yes, of course."  
  
We sat in the lifeboat.  
  
"Tootles, I'm so sorry... I..."  
  
"What happened, Wendy? I don't understand what's happening. Don't you love me any more?"  
  
"Of course I love you, Tootles... I just... I..."  
  
"What are your feelings for me, Wendy?"  
  
"Those of a devoted wife!"  
  
I paused for just too long. I was lying and he knew it.  
  
He fumbled in the pocket of his coat.  
  
"Here," he said, and handed me a small parcel of papers. "A present."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
"Look inside."  
  
So I did.  
  
"But Tootles, these are just your adoption papers."  
  
"I always carry them with me to remind me of mother."  
  
"Yes, I remember, but why are you giving them to me?"  
  
"What do they mean?"  
  
"That you were adopted, of course."  
  
"What else?"  
  
"I don't know, my darling. I don't understand legal documents. You know that. I never was much of a lawyer's wife."  
  
"You never were any kind of lawyer's wife at all."  
  
I had expected tears or fury, not a game of riddles. "Tootles, what are you talking about?"  
  
"Wendy, darling... well, you are still Wendy Darling. We're not married. Legally speaking we're brother and sister. Our wedding was invalid. Technically, it's incest. There will be no problem obtaining an annulment. I would go so far as to say it is our duty to obtain one."  
  
I wanted to believe he wanted it as much as I did, but when I looked at him and saw his trembling hands, his eyes averted and full of tears, I could tell it took every ounce of strength and self control he had not to snatch the papers away, not to put his arms round me and rest his head against my breast and sob his heart out and never to let me go. I wanted to tell him (and knew that he was hoping beyond hope I would) that he was my true love, and married or not I would stay by his side forever.  
  
"I need some time to think this over."   
  
*****  
  
"Jane? How would you like to live? Would you like to travel on a pirate ship and see the worlds, or would you like it to be like before with me and Daddy and Nana in London?" If only it could be like before.  
  
"Both," was the reply. "I'd like to spend half the year at sea and half at home. And half on holiday and half at school like David and Nico and half..."  
  
I interrupted her. "We can't have both."  
  
She thought for a while.  
  
"The pirate ship then."  
  
And that was it. I asked Tootles what he would do and he said he'd go back to Mummy. I expect she will hate me, but it doesn't matter because I shall never see her again. I don't understand what that means. I can't imagine never seeing her again. I can't imagine never again seeing London or Nana or motor-cars or Nelson's Column or the nursery mantelpiece. I can't comprehend the choice I'm making any more than Jane can.  
  
I busy myself with practical chores: tidying the ship, getting supplies of food in, looking after Jane, looking after the Captain. I know I have made the right decision.  
  
I requested an audience with chief Tiger Lily, and secured a promise that she would command her shamans to find a way of blocking up the passage between Never Land and London. I hope that children will play with Peter as long as they are gay and innocent and heartless, and longer too, but they will do so safely in their dreams and never again the way I and Jane and John and Michael did. Tying up loose ends. Everything neat and tidy.  
  
We walked up the gangplank, mother and daughter together, to begin our new life. She took my hand. "Mummy," she said, "it is only pretend, isn't it?"  
  
"Yes, my love," I lied. "It's only pretend." 


End file.
